Main menu

Elle and Dakota Fanning: the two popular Hollywood sister

As a child, in particular Dakota was considered as premature genius. Thanks to films like I Am Sam, Man on Fire and War of the Worlds, became extremely popular in Hollywood. Today, for various reasons, both Elle and Dakota return on the stage.

Elle Fanning

Elle Fanning is the leading star of the new movie of the director of Drive, Nicolas Winding Refn, called The Neon Demon. In this movie Elle Fanning plays opposite Bella Heathcote and Christina Hendricks. She gets the first roles in the sci-fi miniseries Taken by Steven Spielberg, where she played the younger version of her sister Dakota Fanning, in the role of Allie Keys, and in the film I Am Sam in increasingly younger version of Dakota. The first independent role from her sister arrives with the comedy Daddy Day Care, followed by The Door in the Floor and Because of Winn-Dixie. With her sister has lent her voice to the cartoon My Neighbor Totoro in the US dubbing.

Also it took part in the film I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With and in Babel, where she played Debbie, the daughter of Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, The Nines in the role of Noelle and Reservation Road in the role of Emma Learner. The first lead comes with Phoebe in Wonderland movie in which she plays the role of a child with Tourette’s syndrome who would like to take part in the school play, Alice in Wonderland. To run alongside there are the actresses Felicity Huffman and Patricia Clarkson.

She also participated in the film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. In March 2008, Elle and Dakota were chosen for the role of the two young sisters in The My Sister’s Keeper, opposite Cameron Diaz, but the two refused when Dakota learned she would have to shave the hair for interpretation. They were immediately replaced by Sofia Vassilieva and Abigail Breslin. She is the protagonist, along with Stephen Dorff in Somewhere, written and directed by Sofia Coppola, shot in Italy and in Los Angeles. The film was presented at the International Film Festival Venice Film Festival, where it won the Golden Lion for best film. In 2011 she takes part in the film Super 8, directed by J. J. Abrams.

She played a very small role in an episode of Dr. House series, namely the eleventh episode of the second season, titled It’s better to know. In 2011, alongside Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson in We Bought a Zoo, by Cameron Crowe.

In 2014 she plays the role of Princess Aurora, the Sleeping Beauty, in the blockbuster Disney Maleficent opposite Angelina Jolie. In 2015 she plays in the film About Ray, the role of a transgender teenager named Ray, starring alongside Naomi Watts and Susan Sarandon. Then a role in the film Trumbo.

Dakota Fanning

After the film with Sean Penn and Michelle Pfeiffer, I Am Sam, which also earned her a nomination from the Screen Actors Guild Awards, Dakota gets a role in the thriller Trapped, then plays in the shoes of a young Reese Witherspoon in Sweet Home Alabama, and as Katie in movie Hansel & Gretel. In 2002, perhaps comes the most challenging role of her career, that of a child born from the intersection with aliens in the television series produced by Steven Spielberg’s Taken.

Dakota Fanning has held very important roles in two films released in 2003, playing a spoiled child as opposed to immature nanny (played by Brittany Murphy) in Uptown Girls, and that of Sally in The Cat in the Hat.

In 2004 she starred opposite Denzel Washington in the thriller Man on Fire, so in Hide and Seek opposite Robert De Niro. Dakota Fanning plays the title character in the movie Dreamer (film inspired by a true story) after which comes the role of Rachel Ferrier in The War of the Worlds again with Steven Spielberg. After finishing War of the Worlds (published after Dreamer) Dakota immediately begins the filming of Charlotte’s Web and lends her voice to the main character of the animated film Coraline, published in 2009.

In 2007 catches on a controversy on the Internet and in newspapers blaming Fanning to have taken part in a movie, Hounddog (shot during the summer of 2006), which arouses irritation by many for victims of sexual violence and abuse minor to which the actress has participated. The mother of the then twelve year old Dakota and the agent declared that the film was a turning point for the actress and confirmed their hope that the interpretation was worth an Oscar to the child. After Hounddog plays Anne Hagen in Fragments (March and April 2007) and in the short film Cutlass Lacy (July 2007). In the same year Forbes magazine puts her at the 14th place of the stars under 25 best paid, with a gain of $ 4 million.

In early 2009 the young actress took part in the movie New Moon, the second installment of the Twilight saga, in the role of vampire Jane, member of the Volturi guard. Fanning plays the same role the following year in the third installment, Eclipse, and also take part in the subsequent chapters of the saga always in the vampire Jane shoes.

In the summer of 2009 Dakota Fanning plays Cherie Currie in the film The Runaways, which tells the story of the homonymous rock group composed exclusively of female members, reciting again alongside Kristen Stewart (with whom she also toured New Moon and Eclipse), who plays the role of Joan Jett. Cherie Currie was the main voice of the group from 1975 to 1977.

In 2014, she is in the cast of the psychological thriller Every Secret Thing, opposite Elizabeth Banks and Diane Lane, the film was released in theaters in May 2015. She is also the protagonist of the film Effie Gray directed by Richard Laxton and written by Emma Thompson. The film tells the story of the mysterious marriage between the young Effie Gray and critic John Ruskin art: after marrying at 19, Effie realizes that her marriage is a farce and will try to leave, making her one of the first women in history to file for divorce from her husband. In the same year will be the protagonist of the film The Benefactor opposite Richard Gere and Theo James.

In May 2015 was supposed to start shooting, in the title role, the film adaptation of Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness, a book that tells the story of Susannah Cahalan, which are made to four different diagnosis: psychotic, depressed bipolar, epilepsy and schizophrenia. Then she had to abandon the project because of too many work commitments, and was replaced by Chloe Moretz.